Why did America abandon its traditional foreign policy of non-involvement in European power politics? With some exceptions, that was America’s foreign policy from the founding of our Republic to the end of the nineteenth century. When America’s pursuit of Empire began. The traditional policy was encapsulated in John Quincy Adams’s famous declaration in his Independence Day Oration of July 4, 1821, that “America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is a well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause by the countenance of her voice and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign Independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brow would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of Freedom and Independence, but in its stead would soon be substituted an Imperial Diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictator of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”
Of course, Wilson can’t be blamed for our pursuit of the Empire in 1898. The primary responsibility for that lies with Theodore Roosevelt and his allies. But the policy of involvement in European power politics took a giant step forward when Wilson, an inveterate Anglophile, followed an unneutral course of conduct after the outbreak of World War I in August 1914. In spite of urging America to be neutral in thought, word, and deed, Wilson soon tilted our foreign policy toward the British cause. He insisted that the Germans strictly respect American neutrality while colluding with the illegal British hunger blockade of Germany, a blockade responsible for a vast number of deaths from starvation.
As Laurence White points out, relying on a book by Malcolm Magee, “Wilson, who supported the views of his uncle James Woodrow on Theistic Darwinism, ‘believed the United States was divinely chosen to do God’s will on earth.’ The United States was the ‘redeemer nation’ destined by God to ‘instruct and lead the world.’ While president of Princeton, Wilson said in a speech that the mighty task before us was ‘to make the United States a mighty Christian nation, and to Christianize the world.’ Wilson viewed himself as ‘the divinely appointed messenger.’ The United States was his parish, and he would ‘be an evangelist, a missionary, for the export of Christian democracy.’ He compared himself to the prophet Ezekiel. He equated patriotism with Christianity and the United States with God’s chosen people. What is of most interest in What the World Should Be ( Magee’s book) is how Wilson viewed himself and the United States during World War I. He said soon after the war began that it ‘may have been a godsend.’ Comments Magge: ‘He was unshaken by the conflict since, despite the carnage, it seemed to open possibilities for his own mission to bring God’s order to the world. He was called by God.’ Being ‘predisposed to be an Anglophile,’ Wilson interpreted information in a way that favored British interests and penalized Germany while continuing to believe that he and the country were being absolutely neutral.’ Wilson had some strange ideas about neutrality. His ‘active’ neutrality ‘allowed America to act on behalf of the righteous.’ The United States would ‘use its power as an aggressive neutral to conquer the forces of disorder and selfishness in the world on all sides.’ Wilson referred to his policy of neutrality as the ‘peaceful conquest of the world. ’ U.S. neutrality would ‘conquer, convert, and change the nations.’ The United States was chosen by God to be the ‘mediating nation of the world.’ America was the ‘house of the Lord’ and the ‘city on a hill.’ The entrance of the United States into the war meant ‘salvation’ to the Allies. Wilson believed in using a ‘neutral force to mediate peace.’ Even as American soldiers were dying in Europe, the United States was ‘neutral in spirit’ in fighting a ‘righteous war.’ Naturally, before he led the country into war, Wilson advocated an increase in the military, the reserves, and military spending, but ‘purely for defense.’ If war became necessary, it must be a peacemaking war. He wanted a ‘new international order’ that would prevent such a war from happening in the future. The Versailles Treaty would allow him, as president, to ‘do great good for the downtrodden inhabitants of the world.’ The paternalistic Wilson had a tendency to ‘see the nonwhite peoples as being in need of instruction.’”
If the United States had remained neutral in World War I, it is very likely that a negotiated settlement would have brought the war to an end. In that case, the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires would have remained in place, and Hitler would never have come to power. Instead, Wilson demanded that Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicate and end the German monarchy before he would consent to negotiate an armistice. He also insisted that the Austro-Hungarian Empire come to an end, thus unleashing the conflicts among rival ethnic nationalist movements that did so much to cause World War II.
Wilson said that the League of Nations, his pet project, would ensure lasting peace. Instead, it cemented in place the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles. As the great historian Ralph Raico noted in a lecture, “The world then, after 1919, when the conference takes place, seems to be pretty much under British and French control. The high point of British and French imperialism is reached—the greatest extent of the British and French Empires. And then they set up the League of Nations. Why was the League of Nations set up? As you know, the League of Nations was set up for all good things. There is no good thing that the League of Nations was not set up for, right? There is another way of looking at this, which is this: Once the treaties of Paris are signed, what do we have in the world? We have established British and French world hegemony—British and French control of the world (with the possible assistance of the United States, if the U.S. is interested). But Germany has been demolished. Russia is involved in turmoil—it’s not going to be a problem for a long time. The British and French have come to the apogee of their empires. And now, let us freeze that for all time. Let us set up an international organization with all the power of the international community behind it, which says that any crossing of any boundary is an act of aggression that is to be answered by the whole world community. And what have you got then? You have locked in for all time, British and French control of the world. That’s, as I say, an alternative view of what the League of Nations amounted to.” Raico rated Wilson as our worst president, and it is easy to understand why.
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